June 8th was the first city council work session to occur in the evening. The mayor and council recently decided to hold the work session in the evenings rather than during the middle of the day. They hope this move will encourage more citizen participation. Nixa Watch was there and will be there to ensure they get the participation they desire.

The council discussed an item that came up at last month's general meeting, but was quickly postponed because all the details had obviously not been worked out. The owner of the Village Marketplace shopping center (tenants include Bud & Walt's Pizza, McAllister's, Verizon Wireless, and others), Jared Properties, asked their neighbor to the south to sell some of his land so Jared could build a street from highway 160 to McCroskey. The street running behind the Village Marketplace, McCroskey, is currently the only way to get in and out of their shopping center.

Jared Properties' neighbor refused to sell a portion of his land to accommodate this, so they came to city council asking the council to take the land by force using eminent domain. Fortunately some councilmen weren't so eager to go through eminent domain proceedings and asked Jared to go back to the neighbor and try to work something out.

They now have a deal on the table, with a few contingencies. This is where the discussion began last night. Jared Properties' neighbor has asked for the city to pay his attorney fees if he were to sell the land to the city to build this street. Councilman Tallaksen questioned why one party's attorney fees would be paid by the city in a deal between two private businesses. Councilman Ellis chimed in and also said even though this land would be turned over to the city to build a street, it's currently a real estate deal between two parties and the city shouldn't be paying any part of it. A vote on whether they will pay the attorney fees will probably occur at their June 20th meeting.

Something that wasn't discussed very thoroughly at the meeting was the proposal to form a Community Improvement District (CID) to pay for this new street. A community improvement district is formed in order to charge more tax than what a city is currently collecting, but only in one specific area and the extra taxes can only be used within that specific area, known as the "district".

The proposal to form a CID to pay for this project brings about many concerns and a member of Nixa Watch is currently in talks with the Show-Me Institute to see how we can bring the pros and cons before the city council and maybe show them a better way to fund building this street. If not, frequenting the businesses in the Village Marketplace will be more expensive than other retail establishments in Nixa because you will be paying a higher sales tax there than you wold anywhere else in the town.

The council also finalized the strategic plan and presented it in its final form at last night's meeting. They went through the plan very quickly last night, but the main concern that stuck out was the newly hired communications director for the city has been given the leeway to promote the city and its initiatives through local media outlets on a regular basis.

The city putting out it's "propaganda" is you will, good or bad, will have to be closely monitored and Nixa Watch will have to be prepared to present the other side if necessary. This will create more work to monitor and prepare our points to submit to local media outlets and get our message to the citizens of Nixa.

Last, but certainly not least, the finance director briefed the council on the city's current financial condition and talked about where the money is going. A point of concern that will have to be monitored is the city is sitting on a lot of money they classify as reserves, so much money that they received a fine from the federal government in the amount of $20,000 because they made too much interest income on a particular fund.

Local government are restricted by both the state and federal government from earning a certain amount in interest income. This prevents a city from taxing more than is necessary and sitting on money and just making interest income off it, rather than putting it to work for the citizen who paid the taxes in the first place.

The presentation was very informative and pointed out a couple of places where bond issues are getting ready to retire, or more money is being made than is necessary. The good thing about that happening is that the councilmen could allow the bond to retire, and/or propose to lower the sales tax to slow the amount of money coming in to stop the city from collecting so much of a surplus.

This presents Nixa Watch with an opportunity to push for a tax DECREASE at the end of the year when the council will be establishing the budget for 2012 and discussing whether or not to go to the taxpayers, asking to renew a bond. It would be a sight for sore eyes if they went to the voters asking their permission to lower taxes!